Killing Fever
by Joak Drysso
Summary: A short, violent, descriptive piece. Not gorey. Nanaya has some fun in a hundredman contest.


Killing Fever

A Tsukihime fic by

Joak Drysso

Boring Disclaimer: I don't own Tsukihime or any of its characters.

Foreword: You might be wondering, upon starting into this story, "Who is Shiki fighting? Why are they fighting? What is the point of this story that has absolutely no context but a hell of a lot of violence?" In short, this piece is simply an attempt to get the creative juices flowing again, as well as to regain the descriptive edge that has dulled in my writing recently. That said, enjoy.

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Frustration, anger, fear. The clearing reeked of it. Tohno Shiki could smell it. They knew _something_ of him, though how they did he did not know. He didn't even know who sent them after him, but at the moment, that didn't matter. They had done something unforgivable – harmed someone close to him. That was really all the persuasion Shiki had needed. And now here they all were. What they didn't know was that they were about to meet one of the most frightening people in existence.

As they slowly crept from the trees, armed with various weapons – he saw a few poleaxes, hand-and-a-half swords, and even a few _dao_ and _jian_. And all he had – all he _needed_ – was the Nanatsu-Yoru. That knife was more than enough. For a moment, Shiki tried to count the bodies leaving the foliage to engage him. He lost count at about eighty – half because he didn't care anymore, and half because the first ones were close enough that he had to start paying attention.

He slid his right leg back and presented his left profile to the group. Blade clasped in his right hand, he raised his left arm and gestured for the first ranks to charge him. They paused, perhaps wondering if he were stupid or insane, or even both – the possibility that they had even been lied to entered some of their minds. They began to charge, obliging the madman before them.

The first to reach was an axeman, wielding two tomahawks. His opening flurry was easy enough for Shiki to dodge – it was nothing compared to Nero, or Roa, or Akiha, or Arcueid – and so the boy dodged and weaved through the charge. The blade lashed out and scored an initial glance across the man's chest – Shiki's unconscious skill combined with focused energy born of anger tore through what little armor the man had on – drawing a thin trail of blood.

This forced the charge to halt, giving Shiki the time he needed to bring his arm back in and clash the blade with the first tomahawk – his free hand caught the other hand by the wrist. For a moment they seemed deadlocked, and then Shiki swung his right leg in and slammed it against his aggressor's, knocking his feet out from under him.

Disengaging from him, Shiki raised the dagger overhead and then drove it down, piercing right through the man's chest and slamming the body into the ground. Silence pierced the forest as all movement stopped. Slowly, the boy withdrew the blade from the man's corpse, and drew himself up to full height. As the moonlight pierced the clouds for a moment, Shiki almost seemed transformed.

Calmly, he removed his glasses, folding the sides and then carefully placing them in his pocket. He spun the knife a bit, almost playfully, with a deftness that struck awe in those nearest him. Then suddenly, he clasped it firmly in his hand again, and threw himself into their midst.

Tohno Shiki fought like man possessed. He danced from opponent to opponent, not so much seeking to immediately kill any of them as much as seeking to disrupt their rhythm and force his own pace onto them. Even their best warriors were confounded by the unbelievable skill with which he wielded that small blade. He rarely clashed directly, especially with their bigger weapons – the dagger would have broken instantly. Rather, he struck at precisely the right angle to turn aside their blows so that they passed him, leaving them totally exposed to his counterattack.

His second takedown was one of those, a man with a zweihander. The swing missed by mere inches, but Shiki drove the hilt into the man's throat with such force that he fell back, clutching at his crushed windpipe. Shiki left him for dead. He had more important – _More fun_, Nanaya interjected – targets to worry about.

Now that his glasses were off, Shiki no longer worried about the men armed with the longer weapons – with the slightest strain, he could see the lines. The dull ache of seeing so many lines in so little a place was already harassing him, but that was the least of his worries. He charged again.

The spearman thrust his weapon forward, his eyes widening to the size of plates as the boy simply jumped above the thrust, and then used the shaft of the spear as a springboard, diving past him; it was the last thing he saw as the knife tore open his throat.

He was now truly in the middle of the enemy, and Nanaya was practically _begging_ to be a part of the fun. Shiki promised him his own time; right now he wanted his own personal vengeance. He lunged forward again. This foe wielded one of the _jian_, with better proficiency than his other enemies had. He lasted six seconds, two more than any of his comrades, before the Nanatsu-Yoru pierced his heart and he fell.

Then, Shiki noticed that he was in a very bad position. On his left was a man hefting a two-handed axe, swinging horizontally, and on his right another prepared to skewer him with a katar. _Okay, Nanaya, I've had my fun. Come on out._ In that instant, _something_ happened, but neither of them realized what until far too late.

Nanaya jumped to the right, using his left arm to intercept the katar and force it aside without injury. His right foot hit first and he used his inertia to spin, driving the blade of the knife all the way to the guard into the man's neck. Using the hilt as leverage, he had less than two seconds to act; the giant axe had missed its horizontal swing but the man had taken a step forward, using the wasted momentum to bring it up high and arc it down in a devastating vertical blow that would easily split Nanaya in two.

He gripped the dead man's hair and the dagger, and pulled the man into his shoulder. He brought the corpse up and over him into the axe, arresting the momentum and even forcing the weapon backwards, while Nanaya simply ripped the knife out and dove forward, his arm a blur as he drove the weapon in a flurry across the other man's chest, flaying skin and bone without hesitation.

As they fell together, Nanaya turned, and grinned with almost feral glee. "_More_." His form blurred, then vanished.

And reappeared in front of an unsuspecting soldier, horrified that someone who was supposed to be a teenage boy had already killed six of their hundred. This poor soul was, at least, spared more terror, the Nanatsu-Yoru finding a snug spot in his chest.

Nanaya shoved the soldier off his weapon, already whirling to meet a trio of aggressors who seemed to have the right idea; they sought strength in numbers, rather than engaging in solo combat like their earlier foolish allies had. Three weapons – two of them spears, the third a _dao_, were thrust at the space that Nanaya had, half a second earlier, occupied. He appeared above them, descending and smashing down the weapons.

"Really. Was that supposed to _work?_" He flipped the knife from his usual reverse grip and, with three quick jabs, dispatched of his latest adversaries. In a moment of inspiration, he kicked the _dao_ up and, handling it as though he had trained with it for years, rushed forward, fencing a machete-wielder with it, before batting the blade out of the way and slashing the Nanatsu-Yoru across the stomach, the sword biting deep.

A veritable whirlwind of steel, Nanaya did not hesitate to use this momentum, whipping his left arm which now contained the _dao_ as hard as he could, hurling the sword. The weapon coursed through the air and sank into a waiting soldier's skull. As his knees buckled, a war cry rose out. The remaining eighty-eight warriors began their desperate charge against this murderer.

"_Finally._ A _real_ challenge." Nanaya idly switched the blade into his left hand. Now, even he was starting to feel the first pangs of the headache – that meant that if he switched back to Shiki, the pain would be rather intense. He had yet to use the lines simply because they were not, up to this point, necessary, nor as rough and bloody as Nanaya (and even, he suspected, Shiki) wanted. But now that he was forced to fight the horde, he had no choice.

Now, he was going to show them the true meaning of terror. He had no doubt that their frontliners were wondering why he had changed his weapon to his off-hand. As his form blurred, then disappeared, only to reappear in front of another axeman, they found out why.

The desperation swing of the axe was easily parried and shrugged away by the knife – with a spear-thrust of two fingers, Nanaya Shiki jammed his fingers into the man's right shoulder, and dragged his fingers across the line that went diagonally down to his mid-stomach. Where the line ended, Nanaya withdrew his fingers. The process lasted less than half of a second.

A bloody line in the man's torso signified the brutality of the attack, before he collapsed. Whatever morale the men had bolstered before disintegrated – now it was just a group of horrified men looking to save their own skins by swarming him. Nanaya felt some glee. He hadn't known how his body would handle cutting the line on its own. But the desired effect had been achieved, and now Nanaya's bloodlust had been taken to another level.

The silent intensity in his eyes had expanded, and now his entire body quivered in excitement as he danced among partners. Two more fell to knife blows, and a third fell prey to his newly-coined "Fingers of Death". He parried a short-sword thrust and drove his fist into the man's exposed neck, crushing his windpipe. Nanaya saved him the pain of choking to death by snapping his neck shortly thereafter.

His next attack sent him blurring again, planting his foot and skidding forward as he began to transfer his forward momentum into centrifugal force – he halted both movements when he slammed his left foot to the ground. His right and left arms were extended. His fingers had solidly delved into a man's line, and with a flourish, Nanaya traced it and tore his blood-soaked hand away, letting the man collapse.

His knife had been flung from his hand, and found itself embedded in another's skull as even more charged past him. Nanaya crouched low and dashed after the blade. In two bounds he had moved past a surprised trio of warriors and snatched the blade out of the man's head as his legs began to fail. He spun it again, and assumed the reverse-grip for parrying.

It was then that he heard a _twang_ and spun. He didn't know if it was too late or too early until he had cleared the turn. It would be close, but his left arm wasn't exactly weak. He lifted the arm, blade intercepting the crossbow's bolt, batting it away. For a moment, the blade was raised to the heavens even as he rotated.

Then it fell, and once again flashed from his hand. This time, it found its mark in the would-be assassin's chest. "Kyokushi…" Amidst the crowd, he disappeared faster than normal, and none saw him until he appeared above their comrade's head, inverted, hands reaching down to grip his head. A brutal twist later, he fell to the ground. The demon they had been sent to pursue landed a moment later, his knife retrieved. "Nanaya."

Nanaya kept a mental tally. He was now one fifth of the way done. At least their swarming tactics were making it easier for him to kill them faster. The headache was growing in intensity, but Nanaya really paid it no mind. He knew the consequences it would have if he kept this going on too long, but the natural-born assassin had no intent of drudging through this group for hours on end.

A group of four charged, and fell to a faster-than-sight flurry of knife-blows. Another trio hurled themselves at him, falling prey to his knife-work and Mystic Eyes. In the moonlight, Shiki's finishing poses seemed like those of a werewolf; the soldiers genuinely believed that the moon had granted Shiki these powers to wreak hell's vengeance upon them, a gift of killing fever, as the moon granted the werewolves of lore their transformations.

None of them realized how much more extraordinary their foe was than any vampire or werewolf. He might have been human, but he had a power that nobody else did – a truly unique being in this world. It was his blessing, and that blessing was going to kill him shortly.

Nanaya just wanted to have his fun while he was still alive.

Swiftly, he kicked up one of the corpses that now littered the clearing, and pivoted his foot, rotated his hips, and then drove his right foot into the body's spine, launching the human projectile into the first ranks. He followed behind, two swift strokes decapitating the two that had been caught by the corpse. Now he was among the horde.

They moved to encircle him, trying to press in. Nanaya belatedly realized that this was not a good position to have pushed himself into. However, the same analytical mind that had allowed him to deal with Akiha in the school, the same analytical mind that had allowed him to drive off all manner of beasts and creatures, was already processing new data and providing him a way out.

He struck out to his right, his foot flying right into waiting hands – this one was apparently pretty good at martial arts. Nanaya turned to face him, and then brought his left foot out from under him, striking at the man's groin. The impact was muffled, as Nanaya had half-expected. He caught himself above the ground with his hands.

Then he demonstrated how powerful his body was. Through sheer leg and arm strength, his body twisted, and the man who was now gripping one foot with the other between his legs twisted with him. His left leg removed itself from the region, and dipped low, flashing forward and colliding with the man's left side, hurling him into his compatriots to Nanaya's right.

Nanaya landed on all fours, and then pounced, driving his elbow into another soldier's stomach before bringing his knife-hand straight up, drawing his own line vertically up the soldier's body. He pushed the body into the arms of his approaching allies, and then spun, slashing the Nanatsu-Yoru up at an angle through his new aggressor's armpit. The severed limb fell just before the man's death.

Nanaya Shiki built himself a fortress of the dead. He held his new position moving very little, continually striking. From this position, he killed ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. At thirty, he had to move – no longer could the soldiers even reach him, for the bodies simply stacked too high.

_WHAM._ Nanaya stumbled a bit, dazed. What had just hit him? _WHAM._ Oh. The headache. He held his head for a few moments, trying to get a hold of himself. As much as Nanaya didn't mind the pain, his body did. Nanaya actually _enjoyed_ it – pain was proof that you were still alive. Against Akiha, and Nero, and the others, it had been an irritation, because it distracted him from the fight – pain was plentiful there. But against these soldiers? The only pain he had experienced the whole fight was this headache.

Nanaya just chose to relish in it, and finish his task.

He cleared the wall of bodies with a single bound, landing near enough to one of the remaining soldiers to drive his hand forward and spear the man's stomach with the knife. He forced it down, not caring much to look at the results. His job was almost done.

Nanaya loved nights like these.

FIN

Post-Script: This piece is iffy for me. On one hand, I like it because it's a descriptive work, and I haven't done many of those lately. On the other hand, and I bet that by the third page many of you would probably agree with me – it's boring. It's action-y, yes, descriptive, brutal, violent, but it lacks a certain _something_ that makes it not so interesting. Granted, I had fully intended on leaving out the dialogue and just going with the violence and stuff from the get-go, but I had hoped to come across something that would make up for it.

For those wondering why I didn't have Shiki go for the lines from the get-go, it's two-fold. The first is that Shiki was wearing his glasses to begin with, and also because he was rather upset. That's my bullshit reason. The second, real, reason is that I had originally thought that when one cut the lines it was a relatively clean process – I had totally forgotten that when he sliced and diced Arcueid in the game it provided a rather messy bloodbath. I was talking with a friend and she reminded me that it was, in fact, not clean, so I put the lines in.

Yes, I did rip off Kara no Kyoukai in allowing Nanaya to cut lines with his fingers. I thought the idea was pretty badass myself.

One reason I decided to end this piece before the actual end of the showdown was because I was growing kind of uncomfortable with where it was headed myself. My descriptions of the wounds, I thought, were not graphic. Yes, there was blood spray, and the fight itself was graphic in terms of choreographic description (at least, I thought so, but I've been proven wrong before), but I'm not a person that enjoys gore. Towards the end, I was beginning to run out of steam in being creative with the attacks without getting descriptive with the wounds (which I think was obvious), and so I chose, rather than to start getting descriptive THERE, to just go ahead and end it while I wasn't getting disgusted with my own work.

Yes, I'm squeamish like that, and I read Berserk. I'm a weird person.


End file.
